Gift of Life shows its appreciation

Gift of Life Australia has presented Sydney’s St Vincent’s Pathology with a Certificate of Appreciation for their dedicated training of venepuncturing of the Gift of Life Volunteers who continue to test many potential stem cell donors to save lives .

Shula Endrey-Walder in white skirts presents the certificate

Ms Carmel Condon, manager of Syd Path at St Vincents Hospital received the Certificate from Shula Endrey-Walder, founder of Gift of Life Australia 26 years ago , in the presence of Debbie Redelman, Volunteer for 15 years and her daughter Nadia Nissen ,volunteer for 8 years: holding her 11 week old daughter Layla (a future Gift of Life volunteer ! ) also present was Gabby Sessin a Medical Science student who is next in line to be trained to collect blood from potential life saving Gift of Life Stem Cell Donors.

Three potential donor testing sessions have been organised by Gift of Life Australia in Sydney and Melbourne for a Jewish leukaemia baby in Israel, a young girl in India and a Caucasian/Thai 24 year old leukaemia patient in London who will die unless a donor will be found for them shortly.

Gift of Life Australia raises awareness about the life saving possibilities of donating stem cells to blood cancer patients for whom sadly a family member has not been found matching.

As DNA is inherited, the likelihood of finding a match is within one’s own ethnic group and so the Gift of Life was set up to recruit matches within ethnic minority groups throughout Australia & the World . Several matches had been found for Jewish Leukaemia patients, Sri Lankan and Japanese Leukaemia patients in their respective communities. Jay Feinberg , founder of Gift of Life in the USA is celebrating his 25th anniversary this year of curing his leukaemia with a transplant from an unrelated donor. She’ll be celebrating this milestone with him in New York on the 2nd June in the presence of 1000 supporters.

Gift of Life Australia consists of dedicated volunteers who raise awareness and test potential donors who complete the Red Cross Medical questionnaires and the Aussie Stem Cell and Bone Marrow Donor Registry ABMDR forms and have a small blood sample taken for tissue typing. Over many years , volunteers who wish to take the blood samples have been trained by St Vincents Pathology training staff . Most of these volunteers are today scientists, doctors and nurses practicing their chosen specialities.

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